Cruel Thing
by xheartmehorrid
Summary: [envy x wrath] Every night serves as a reminder. This is how it is. This is how it will always be. But it should have never come to this. [ It's a cruel kind of love. ]


Cruel Thing  


full metal alchemist: not mine.

lyrics belong to London After Midnight

proceed.

He moved sleeky silky through the silence, white marble flesh jumping against the darkness, the floorboards creaking and moaning with the moisture underground; collected in the dry rustling leaves outside- yellowed and flaking- and the drip of the cellar beneath the stairs. The hard black night so cold it raised the hairs on the nape of his neck and spine as he arched and stretched languidly, prowling the hallways, coming upon an unlocked door and creeping into the bedroom within. Through the curtains howling with soft humidity- the heavy moist chill from outside, scattered with stars as lifeless and eternal and unmutable as they were. Indistinguishable from eachother save for soft variations in brightness, and in darkness, every now and then.

Through the curtains to the bed he moved, that slinkster shadow, and drew back the sheets, the white mismatched and mangled body of the child underneath, his shape pressed into the mattress and

outlined through the sheets. He had no need for sleep but still he slumbered. His lips moving to form the unutterable words, the soft heaves of his clammy chest rustling his tangled hair. "Your star will fall," he thought, because they were all falling slipping farther from salvation because there was none. "Your star will fall, but you are so completely mine."

He circled his arms around the tiny waist and crawled under the covers with him, slimy and cold like the dust from the windowsills, and the boy also cold to the touch though his breath flickering in and out was warmth tickling the pores of Envy's forearm. He stroked the long hair and the smoothe unbroken scalp, cupped the half-shell cheekbones curved within the shadow of his palms, drew his long fingers up the supple inner thigh. This, his and that bitch woman's creation. This child monstrosity. This abortion of human life. The heart that beat within him insubstantial as the air; Just as vital to them all as the air also. What was real? None of this, certainly. But it was deliciously real all the same.

Like a snake he molded himself to fit the crevices and curves of the boy-child's prepubescent shape, some of their cells bleeding together as they lay starlit and intertwined, intermingling their blood because Wrath absorbed some of the matter in his sleep- the inorganic matter which was Envy's dead insides. Their breaths escalated and descended as one. The joined pounding of their heartbeats like the rhythm of a drum inside their veins.

Crescendo. Crescendo. Crescendo.

And it was worthless to call it hatred that he was going to lead this tiny creature into suffocating darkness and not lead him out, but leave him in it, swimming at the air and screaming for him; screaming out his name. It was not enough to simply know he'd taken him in with that first sweet seducing lie, "Never again will you be alone", and ruined him then, because he would be alone, this pitiful husk of a child never born, never resurrected, but never buried; and he was the one who would leave him to die when it was all over. When the tapestry unravelled. They used to have the words.

But it was useless to call it love that he crept into this room every night, when the lines between morning and night were frayed, like the thin line between love and hate which was indistinguishable in Envy. Envy who was strong and beautiful and changeable. Androgynous; sexless as the angels carved in tombs. And this child with his demonic rows of teeth and tearstained eyes and soft sweet lips and, shattered fragments of black hair, the haphazard sets of limbs struggling against his body which was so small, and the limbs so unfit for him. Like a cherubim torn from heaven's side and cast into the blackest pit of hell.

And in this turmoil they were together. They were joined in suffering. They were one. But even with the mark that united them and the hatred and vengeance and sorrow that united them, Envy was too different from this snivelling monster child to ever feel for him anything other than the same cold indifference he would show to a strange man in the middle of the night who he'd seduced, robbed then murdered and left in the dust on the side of the road. Winding up against him, he could feel his breath and the tumult of his dreams, shocking the tip of one nerve ending then another, bolts of electricity that sent him wiggling and whimpering. Twisting in the sheets as Envy held him and the nightmares that colored his heart and his lungs, and his eyes which saw everything as though it were only yesterday_. Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy! _The cry that tore from him again, and again, and again, unceasingly.

Envy pressed his nails into the tender shoulder blades like wings, leaving crescent moon scars embedded in the flesh. The marked rings glowing pink against the white flesh; white like ashes, white like lilies, like the city morgue. Then he crept up from the bed and to the old record player in the far corner of the room which was scattered with rubble and rubbage, peeling wall paper and a few of the "toys" Wrath enjoyed, mostly human couples involving mothers and small children, holding eachother in their arms as they decayed in a heap on the floor, their eye sockets swarming with ants.

The lilting melody wove through the silence and a clandestine smile lit his silver tongued mouth full of fangs, the tape spinning inside the old contraption, and his hairs stood at attention.

"_through darkened streets and blackened gloom_

_the candles dim in your bedroom_

_rain reflecting shadows in the night_

_the moon is full and through the mist_

_i hear your voice i feel your kiss_

_the line grows thin between whats wrong and right_

_burning flesh_

_pale as the stars_

_no one knows just who you are_

_drive the knife deeper to my soul_

_velvet touch your mouth on mine_

_drunk on lust like drunk on wine_

_the world will end_

_we'll hear the thunder roll_

_dont even say it_

_dont even look away_

_haunted by_

_haunted by_

_black winged angel come to me_

_release my soul from this misery_

_in the candle light you'll see_

_just what all this means to me_

_the line grows thin between whats wrong and right_"

And, overcome with the melody, like a ghostly hymn whispering through those walls, and the electric current riding the violent strings of the guitar, he swiftly took the boy in his arms- squirming and light and not even 80 pounds deadweight- and slipped his fingers into the black hair. He drew him up and crushed his lips against the slim white neck, bobbing like a flower on its stem, sleek marble arch, pressing his mouth violently against the artery and sucking the life from him in droughts until his lips burst overflowingly with red. He held the boy's tiny limp arms, the wrists thin and fragile, glassy, cluttered with the shadows of blue veins; so small he could circle them with his thumb and forefinger; and drove his teeth into the flesh until they stroked the veins below. It ran out thick and purple like thick purple flowers, wine-like almost, streaming and streaming as he gleaned himself on the dead blood.

It was a violent love, and a quiet love, and a cruel love as he laid him back down in the scented sheets, limp and white, whiter, whitest save for the sunkissed stolen limbs. The breaths fluttering and frail, the lips a perfect bow of red. And Envy who was dripping with it, whose arms were sleeved with it to the elbows.

"Your star is fallen. But you're so completely mine."

As he headed stealthily for the door, Wrath sat up, his eyes menacing in the darkness.

"Envy-nii," he said, in all seriousness, and Envy stopped in the doorway without looking at him, his ears prickling for anything at all as he stood there, so stiff and still and shameless for the shameful thing he'd done.

"I hate you," Wrath said. Then he laid back down, heaving a quiet painful breath. His hands folded across his chest in the state of a martyr. "And I love you," he moaned, softly.

Envy crept out into the hall and locked the door behind him. He slid down against the wooden frame. His blood was throbbing. Screaming. The streambeds of his veins overflowed with the blood of the homunculus child.

Envy laughed so hard he nearly cried.

"I love you too," he whispered to himself, hysterically. his head was tilted back, eyes pinned to the ceiling, as if somehow that was mocking God and everything he stood for. He was. For making him this; for making him like this.

"I love you too."

And the laughter turned to sobs, turned to tears, turned to nothing.


End file.
